Harvesting the crops means that we’re left with big, empty, open fields.

There’s nothing better than popping in a cd (the girls are into Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift these days) and driving ’round and ’round until dark.

There’s not a whole lot of traffic either – except for that guy over there. But I think he’s looking out for us.

A couple nights ago I saw our neighbor, Farmer Roger and his wife Betty at the end of our driveway. It was getting pretty dark out but they seemed to be unloading a peanut bale… in our driveway. As far as I know we don’t have any cows down there to eat them.

The Cotton Husband came home while they were here and I went on about my business – if they had trouble then he’d be a heap more help than I woulda been.

Yesterday morning the mystery was solved. This is what was at the end of my driveway.

We couldn’t WAIT for the girls to come home (they spend half the week with their father) and see it.

We could see them springing out of their seats on the bus before it even stopped.

Oh yeah… they had the coolest house on the bus route yesterday.

Lots of people think I have three children. That’s not true.

I have four. Here’s the biggest kid of them all. He’s in the baseball cap and flannel shirt.

It’s not enough just to have an enormous jack-o-lantern in our yard. No. You must risk safety in order for ANYTHING to be fun, right?

Apparently the boy in the red coat is more mature than the Cotton Husband. He was not about to be caught and thrown onto the peanut bale. He’s smart AND quick!

One would think that as busy as we are harvesting this time of year that we’d let Halloween sort of pass by without much thought.

But we found out a few years ago that people LOVE hayrides. Love ‘em, I tell ya.

So now we have a haunted hayride every year in October.

It’s not so scary.

The Cotton Husband and his friends spend the afternoon tying up my good white sheets in the trees…

and sticking our wooden cutout of a Colonial man in the woods (Frankly, that just makes everyone laugh).

One year they plopped rubber turkey decoys in the trees. And deer horns in the branches. Yeah – we really strive to terrify folks over here, y’all.

But one of the best parts is getting ready for the hayride. We’re all together… working to clean the house, making brownies and getting the yard ready for guests. And we’re throwing hay. There’s lots of throwing hay going on.